


no other stars

by lacquer



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Exes, Ghosts, M/M, Magic, Reunions, because ghosts, dreamcatcher cameo, the whole thing is kinda like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 05:54:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20961548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lacquer/pseuds/lacquer
Summary: A lightning strike of longing hits Soonyoung’s heart, jumps straight through his carotids, up to his brain. Fries the frontal lobe until all that’s left is a ringing silence. The breath kicks out of his lungs,onetwo.Like a heartbeat. Like the first two steps on a thousand mile journey. His voice cracks when he says, “I want—”Soonyoung meets up with an ex. A storm is coming.





	no other stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartcondition](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartcondition/gifts).

> i’m…not sure what this is? anyway, happy birthday sydney!! thank you for always putting hoshi on my tl! also for BA tweets, GoT vaguetweeting, and the occasional duck picture, all absolutely stellar content. i’m pretty sure you’re the first person after pyrophane i read svt fic for, so it’s only fitting that i try and write you a hoshi. my first hoshi? to be specific
> 
> primarily inspired by those comments that hoshi made about being possessed on stage, there’s a fair heaping of weird magic in here. my twitter has pretty much been [apologies for having no plot] for the past few days, so here’s an explanation. there’s so much...something in here, i’m not going to try and explain it further. first time writing these two, so characterization might be a little shaky?
> 
> i hope your birthday was and continues to be awesome, have an excellent year!! <3

_And the light, which was the light of death,  
seemed to restore to earth_

_its power to console. There were  
no other stars._

-Louise Glück, "The Evening Star"

Seungcheol calls when the storm is halfway across the horizon. Soonyoung is coming home from the dance studio, humming along to the latest song he had been choreographing to, when his phone shrills. 

It takes him a second to fumble it out, squinting to see the caller ID through the sun’s glare. When he flips it open, the screen tells him it’s _ CHICKEN COUP(S) _—a reminder not to let Jeonghan near his phone the next time they go drinking. He still hasn’t figured out how to change it back, and honestly it’s funny enough that he hasn’t put too much effort into the attempt. 

When Soonyoung answers, Seungcheol is clattering around his apartment with his phone on speaker. He can hear something in the background that sounds a lot like Jeonghan, shouting about their cat. 

“What’s up?”

Seungcheol picks up the phone with another clatter and turns it off speaker. “Soonyoung, thank god. You know you’re my favorite coven member, right?” 

Soonyoung laughs, big and bright. Seungcheol sucks at buttering people up, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. “Of course I am! Glad you remember.”

“And you know that I would do anything for you?”

Despite himself, something warm rises within Soonyoung’s chest at that. “Sure I know, thanks hyung.” He doesn’t offer anything though, just waits for Seungcheol’s response. 

There’s a pause on the other end of the line. Soonyoung grins, bouncing on the toes of his feet as he walks down the street. It was fun to wind him up sometimes, force Seungcheol to ask for what he wanted straight out instead of waiting for it to be offered to him. He knows he’ll cave eventually.

Case in point, it’s only another couple of seconds before Seungcheol gives in. “Soonyoungie, I need a favor.”

Soonyoung pushes the button for the crosswalk and does a tiny victory dance to himself. “What is it?”

“Do you remember that exchange program we're doing with the American covens?”

“Yeah, you’ve only been planning it forever.” Something twinges within his chest, and Soonyoung knocks a fist against his shoulder to calm it down. It was the storm coming probably. He needed to get inside.

Seungcheol laughs, a little too loud. “Yeah, so there might have been a slight mix up in the housing.”

“Do you need me to have one of the exchange students over? I’d be great with the tiny witches!”

“Ah, kind of?” There’s a brief scuffle over the other end of the line, and Soonyoung faintly hears Seungcheol say _ down, down, that’s a good cat, _before he picks back up. “We have houses prepared for everyone, except for one. That is, Hong Jisoo’s. He’s the coordinator of the program on the American side, but the arrangements we had fell through. I’d offer him a place with me and Jeonghan but-” There’s a loud bang from the other end of the line, and Soonyoung pulls the phone away from his ear to look at it with concern. 

When he starts listening again, Seungcheol is still talking as if nothing happened. “-t’s why I said I’d look for somewhere else. I know your house isn’t the… most hospitable, but you’re the best option. He’ll be busy with the exchange students most of the day, he just needs a place to stay at night.”

Soonyoung tries to quickly think through any long terms plans he might be able to use to get out of this and comes up disappointingly blank. The light turns and he crosses the street. “For how long?”

“He’s here for a month, but—”

Soonyoung cuts him off. “Hyung, are you serious?”

“It wouldn’t be the entire time, just three days until me and Jeonghan can get something sorted here. Please, Soonyoung?” Seungcheol’s voice hits the back of Soonyoung’s ribs, puppy dog eyes invisible but still distinctly felt. And then he goes in for the kill. “Besides, you owe me for fixing Minghao’s spell circle right before Chuseok.”

Soonyoung groans, but he can’t deny it. “Fine fine fine, be glad I’m gracious enough to save you this time. When is he coming in?”

There’s the shuffle of papers in the background. “He’ll be at the Incheon airport in… two hours. Is your car still working? I can give you a ride.”

“I’ll be fine, hyung.” He laughs again. “Cutting it a bit close, huh.”

Seungcheol makes a relieved sound on the other end of the line, and Soonyoung curses the way it makes this whole adventure worth it. “Thank you so much Soonyoungie. I owe you one.”

In the distance, Soonyoung can see his house nearing, and starts fishing for his keys. “Damn right you do. See you at the next meeting, where I _ will _be requesting payment!” He caps the statement with an ominous laugh, listening to Seungcheol start to panic a little before he hangs up.

On the horizon, storm clouds are gathering. Soonyoung’s stomach twists and he walks a little faster. He needs to hurry if he wants to get to Incheon on time.

~~~

It takes a while to get to the Incheon airport. There had been an accident near one of the big intersections, backing everything up for miles. He spends an hour tapping on his steering wheel, dancing in place to SHINee, watching the sky slowly darken to steel grey. The line of cars creeps down the highway like ice melt, slowly dripping by the crash. 

On the horizon, the storm is more than three quarters to land, winds starting to lash the trees nearby. When Soonyoung flips the radio on to the weather, he can hear the announcer warning “..._ bly one of the worst storms in the last ten years. Make sure you have enough water and…” _He flips back to Replay.

The faintest hint of rain hits his windshield. Soonyoung keeps driving. 

~~~

When he finally gets to the airport, it’s crowded. Planes diverted from other areas already hit by the weather are landing in succession, Incheon welcoming them with open arms. Soonyoung manages to find a spot near the arrivals section to park, and makes his way over to the waiting area. He’s most definitely late by now. 

Belatedly, he realizes that he never asked for Jisoo’s number, or even a description of his face. All Soonyoung has to go off of is the travel information Seungcheol forwarded him, and the knowledge that Jisoo is a witch of some sort. 

The information is not as helpful as it could be; witches couldn’t sense each other, and Soonyoung doesn’t have any locating rituals prepped. Static clings to his skin as he walks towards the rows of seats, a cashmere crackle as familiar as the clouds on the horizon. He needs to get home. 

Being near the airport is awful, entirely too close to the one thing that Soonyoung won’t allow himself. He buries the impulse it raises, drowns it in the pressure-front excitement of meeting someone new. Smiles.

That smile lasts all of two seconds when he finally gets to where Hong Jisoo is waiting with his luggage stacked in a neat pile. 

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, “where Joshua Hong is waiting”. See, the last time Soonyoung had looked at those features was when he had kicked him out of his house and told him to never come back. It’s been three years and the sight of Joshua’s face still knifes him between the vertebrae as he walks closer. 

Joshua, Jisoo, Soonyoung feels like an idiot. The connection comes with all the grace of a slap to the face. Of course he knew his boyfriend’s Korean name, but somehow it hadn’t registered. Joshua had moved away three years ago and practically dropped off the face of the planet. At least for Soonyoung. Apparently Seungcheol had found him and he hadn’t even been looking.

Stepping in front of the pile of luggage at Joshua’s feet, Soonyoung says, “Josh– Jisoo-ssi.” The name trips over his tongue, tumbles out to rest among the bags and suitcases.

At his voice Jisoo looks up. There’s a brief moment where Soonyoung thinks he sees surprise slice across his eyes, but it’s gone in the next moment, replaced by a pleasant curiosity. “Soonyoung?” No honorific. 

“Yeah.” Soonyoung rocks back on his heels and sticks his hands in his pockets. “Seungcheol called me, apparently you need a place to stay?”

Jisoo raises a delicate eyebrow and brushes his hair back over his ear with one hand. It’s pink now, makes him look like he could shatter in a strong breeze. "I do, thank you. Apparently something came up with the location he had previously arranged, though I’m not clear on the details.”

Unspoken, but loud between them is history. _ Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t I? _ Soonyoung’s hands itch for something to do, a way to escape. He doesn't know what to say. Hi? Hello? Sorry I kicked you out of my life, it was for your own good? The last time I saw you, the taste of you was still on my tongue and I still haven't forgotten? Not exactly a great start to their time together.

Outside, the storm moves farther inland, sending shivers down his back. He covers by reaching down for Jisoo’s bags, picking up three of them before he has time to blink. “Well, my house is open if you’re ok with that?”

“I suppose I have to be.” Jisoo picks up his last bag and gives Soonyoung a tight smile. “Are we taking the bus?”

Soonyoung shakes his head, and gestures towards the exit with his foot, hands full. “The car’s outside, I drove here.”

“They still let you drive?” Jisoo says, teasing. It hits a strange note now. Soonyoung can’t quite take the words how they were meant. A fading bruise-ache, pressing on the comfort they used to have. The sliding doors open in front of them, rain slicing through the gap to brush across Soonyoung’s face. He chances a glance at Jisoo, who looks unbothered by the oncoming storm. 

“Let me?” Soonyoung shoots back. “Who’s going to stop me?”

Jisoo just hums in response, cat eyes peering sidelong at Soonyoung when he glances over. That was the problem with Joshua, he was always looking. Apparently he still is.

“Certainly not me,” Jisoo says. That too hasn’t changed. 

They get to the car with little more fanfare, Soonyoung’s mouth dried shut around anything he might want to say. He sets down Jisoo’s bags on the curb and opens the door to the backseat before placing them inside. All the while Jisoo watches him, contemplative and with an edge of something Soonyoung can’t quite parse. He might have been able to, three years ago.

They get in the car, Soonyoung fiddling with the driver’s side lock until it pops open, and head out. Traffic is thankfully better coming back. As they cross the bridge, Soonyoung unsticks his voice and shoots a glance at Jisoo. He’s still looking back at him. They lock eyes for a brief moment before Soonyoung turns back to the road. “So, how was your flight?”

Jisoo hums. “Not bad. The weather was pretty good I think? We got here faster than I expected.”

Soonyoung nods, trying to look casual, and not like he wants to turn Jisoo upside down and shake him until whatever he knows about traveling falls out. “What’s it like up there?”

“Up there?” Joshua asks.

The gesture Soonyoung makes in return is expansive, encompassing the stars, the clouds, everything in between. The car wobbles even with one hand still on the wheel, and he quickly returns his other hand back on it. The car steadies. “Yeah. Up there in the sky.”

Joshua snorts. When Soonyoung takes another glance at him, he’s pressed his face into the glass of the car door, staring outside the window. He’s not looking towards Soonyoung anymore, eyes turned to the clouds gathering above them. When he speaks, his voice is calm. “It’s amazing, even when you’re stuck in such a small space. The sky looks so much bigger, like the horizon could go on forever.”

A lightning strike of longing hits Soonyoung’s heart, jumps straight through his carotids, up to his brain. Fries the frontal lobe until all that’s left is a ringing silence. The breath kicks out of his lungs, _ onetwo. _Like a heartbeat. Like the first two steps on a thousand mile journey. His voice cracks when he says, “I want—”

When he doesn’t continue, Jisoo looks over and prompts, “Want?”

Soonyoung shakes his head, and surprisingly, Jisoo lets it go. He wouldn’t have, three years ago. It’s a reharmonization of a melody Soonyoung hasn’t heard in a long time—same notes, different underpinnings. 

Instead, what Jisoo asks is, “How have you been?” It isn’t a simpler question, but it is an easier one.

“Good.” Soonyoung says. To himself or to the familiar stranger in his passenger seat, he’s not sure. “I’ve been good.”

They hit a turn in the road, and Soonyoung squashes the urge to look to the side, see if Jisoo still smiles the same, see if he’s smiling at all. Soonyoung’s house is located a ways out from the city, close to the dance studio he works full-time at. It was a lucky break to find a place so close to his house, especially since he couldn’t move.

Belatedly, he remembers to return the question, voice a little too loud when he asks. “And what about you?”

Jisoo takes a moment before replying. He sounds almost surprised at himself when he says, “I’ve been doing good too. Work has really kept me busy these past few months.”

Soonyoung’s been wondering about that, too. “How’d you get involved with that, anyway?

“What, this program?” 

“I don’t know.” Soonyoung takes an exit off the freeway, turning towards more distant suburbs. “Kids in general I guess. I thought you wanted to be a musician.” 

“A lot can change in three years.” Wistfulness is a summer rain over the edges of his vowels, shades the words softer. Contemplative. “I was surprised too, but I really enjoy it. You know, I didn’t say it before but I’m sorry.”

Soonyoung feels his eyebrows push together. “What for? You can’t control Seungcheol’s planning.” Above them, the sky darkens further, grey as the flat of a sword. Storm ready to strike.

“Not for that. For dropping off the face of the planet.”

_ You should be, _is a step off of Soonyoung’s tongue, but perhaps the three years have changed him too, because all that he says is, “Everyone has things they regret.” He doesn't want to talk about it so he continues, “Kids have been good for you. You needed to loosen up.”

Jisoo’s laughter coming from his right is unexpectedly stunning, hits Soonyoung upside the head and makes him blink. The man Soonyoung knew would have struck back, gone a little distant. This one just throws his head back laughing, and from the corner of his eye, Soonyoung can see a smile flit cat-like over the corners of his mouth. 

It’s as much private amusement as something shared with Soonyoung, but the fact that Jisoo laughs at all is astounding. “You’re probably right.” A pause, and then, “Is there something wrong?”

“What?” Shaken from his appraisal of Jisoo’s features, Soonyoung jerks his attention back to the road, remembering to take another right turn only at the last second. 

“With my face.” Jisoo pulls a thumb over the corner of his mouth, checking for food residue. Soonyoung tries to avoid crashing the car. He vows not to look over for the rest of the ride. Clearly Jisoo is bad for his health. “You kept staring.”

“Ah.” Soonyoung pauses. Marshals his thoughts. “It’s just… you’re different from how you used to be.”

“Aren’t we both?”

Soonyoung doesn’t feel different. A trick of the light, maybe. Time worked like a prism. Turn the years around and find himself back at the start, a mobius strip of frustration. He’s standing in place while the rest of the world marches on, stuck with his house and the job at the tiny dance studio. Going nowhere. 

In the end, he doesn’t answer. He’s been doing that a lot lately. Instead, he turns on the radio, _ Replay _crackling out of the car’s speaker again. He keeps driving. 

~~~

The rest of the ride balances the line of awkward and relaxed, swinging a pendulum of familiarity within Soonyoung’s ribcage. Conversation starts and stops, a dance with half the steps changed. Soonyoung stumbles through them and hits himself in the metaphorical face more than a few times. Jisoo doesn’t offer him a hand up.

It’s in one of the lulls, fifteen minutes from the house, that Soonyoung’s phone rings. The ringtone is exactly the same as Seungcheol’s, that is, the default one. With no clue as to who’s calling, Soonyoung asks Jisoo, “Could you get that for me?”

Jisoo hums an agreement, picking up the phone from the cupholder between them and flicking it open. “Hello?”

There’s a couple seconds of silence and then, “No, but he’s in the car with me. I can pass on a message if it’s urgent.” An indrawn breath. Soonyoung resists the urge to look. 

Another pause. “Of course, I’ll tell him.” Jisoo flicks the phone closed. 

“Who was it?”

“A woman, no name. She said you told her to call you if “it” came back?” Soonyoung can hear the quotation marks around “it”, an unspoken request for clarification. His stomach drops away, leaving a pit beneath his ribs. For a moment, something wraps a hand around his spine. Tugs. 

He shoves it away and flips on his turn signal. “Ah, that’s probably Han Dong. Sorry for the inconvenience, but I need to make a stop there before we can get back to the house.”

Jisoo yawns. Soonyoung isn’t sure if it’s intentional or not, but a pang of guilt shoots through him anyway. Even if he had never been on one, he knew that international flights were exhausting. “Don’t worry.” Jisoo says. It’s not incredibly reassuring. “Why do you need to go visit her, anyway?”

Soonyoung thinks for a moment and says, “I guess you could say she has a problem haunting her.”

~~~

It’s another twenty minutes before they reach Han Dong’s house, a small thing with an attached garden. They’re welcomed inside easily enough, and offered tea, Jisoo sticking by his side instead of waiting in the car. Han Dong, a petite woman with brown hair, had given him a wary look, but offered another cup in the end.

It’s a blend Soonyoung hasn’t had before, something spicy and earthy at the same time. It settles in the middle of his tongue like the slow arrival of autumn. He takes another sip to steady himself and then says, “So, he’s returned.”

Han Dong’s hands tighten around her own cup of tea. “Yes. I don’t know what I expected, but none of the rituals you suggested work any more. I would get rid of him myself, but…” She trails off, hand going to her hip, where a sword should rest. Soonyoung sympathizes. The tools that were most effective to witches often alarmed the public. 

“I understand.” he says. By his side, Jisoo is silent. Watching.

“So can you get rid of him?” Han Dong asks. She doesn’t need to specify the “him”. Soonyoung had been here a month before with purified salts and wards. Since they hadn’t worked, it was time to step up his game. 

He stands and sets down his tea. “Of course. Do you know where he is, right now?”

Han Dong shakes her head. “He moves around the house unexpectedly. I’m not sure what he’s after, but it’s no object that I can locate.” 

Soonyoung has the nasty suspicion that he’s after Han Dong herself, but he keeps that to himself. Han Dong is smart. No doubt she had figured that out for herself. 

A shudder rips itself down his spine. The storm is getting closer. He pulls out a pouch of salt from his pocket and tilts his head at her. “Don’t worry about it. Can I…?”

Han Dong nods. “Go ahead.”

Soonyoung takes a pinch of salt and throws it in front of him. Before the crystals hit the ground they spark into flame, tiny embers hovering around his hands. He takes a breath, clenches his teeth, and breathes out in one long exhale. Wind rustles around him, far more than his lungs could have held, and spins around his feet. 

The salt whirls faster around his hands, trailing comets of light around his wrists. Soonyoung breathes in one more time and speaks a name in a language that shakes the walls. A summoning.

Han Dong sits politely, hands folded in her lap, unfazed. Across from her, Jisoo is trying to approximate her calm, hands clenched around the bottom of his shirt. Soonyoung looks away. 

In front of him, a man coalesces, a howling void where his face should be. At this, Han Dong finally flinches, hand once again at her hip. Soonyoung faces it (most definitely an it, not a him by now) down, feet planted. There’s a hurricane ripping at the backs of his teeth, a mirror of the storm growing above. He opens his mouth. What used to be a man lunges. 

Three things happen in quick succession. One, Jisoo makes an aborted movement from his seat, hands raised as if to help him. Two, the ghost disappears. Three, Soonyoung closes his mouth. 

Jisoo slowly sits down again, and Soonyoung takes a moment to recalibrate.

There’s a ghost with a void for a face screaming in his ribcage. He gives himself three seconds to acknowledge it, before shunting the voice away. It continues to scream. A shiver like the first touch of wind over land rushes all the way down to his fingertips. He ignores it. Everyone has something haunting them, his was just a tad more literal than most. Around his wrists, the salt is gone, nothing but a puff of smoke in the air.

Han Dong stands up and nods at him before walking over to another room. Soonyoung places a hand on the couch and fights off a wave of sudden nausea, the urge to throw up. It’s not like it would help. 

Jisoo gets up as well, quickly stepping over to Soonyoung’s side. He places a hand on his shoulder and Soonyoung shudders, caught between the urge to lean in and an instinctive flinch away. 

“Do you want to explain that?”

Jisoo’s hand on his shoulder is familiar in the way that memories are. The idea of a time suspended in place, never moving except in its clarity. Stuck in one moment forever. Soonyoung shakes it off. “Not really. It’s what you think it is, anyway.”

“I have no idea what I think it is.” Jisoo says. He rubs Soonyoung’s back soothingly anyways. A shudder, entirely unrelated to the bloody murder being howled between his ribs, makes him tremble. 

Han Dong walks back into the room, holding a small reusable grocery bag. It clinks when she hands it over to Soonyoung. “For the trouble.” 

Soonyoung takes it, and manages to steady his hands, before nodding at her. “It’s no trouble, really.”

She smiles at him, and already Soonyoung can see a weight being lifted off her shoulders. “Still, thank you.”

Soonyoung laughs, a little louder and a little longer than the situation warrants, and turns to go. “Call me if you need anything else.”

Han Dong nods at him and Jisoo and sees them to the door. “Thank you. Be careful out there. The storm is almost here.”

Soonyoung is more than aware. He smiles anyway, and walks out onto the covered porch, Jisoo by his side. While they were inside, it had started raining in earnest, water falling from the sky in sheets. He glances to the side, sees Jisoo staring at the weather with an exaggerated expression of dismay. 

“So, I take it you didn’t bring an umbrella either.” Soonyoung says. All he has is the bag Han Dong gave him. Certainly nothing to help the weather.

Jisoo gives him a look, gesturing towards his outfit. He’s wearing a coat, certainly, but it’s by no means waterproof.

A sudden burst of childlike excitement overtakes him, and Soonyoung looks back at the rain. It’s the same feeling that drives him to jump into puddles, to kick through piles of leaves. “You ready to go?”

“Into the storm?” Jisoo reaches out a hand, lets the water fall into his upturned palm. There’s something mischievous in his voice as he replies. “I suppose I have to be.”

Soonyoung grins. “Let’s run.”Jisoo raises an eyebrow, and for a second, it’s like the distance between them isn’t so much at all. 

Without a word they break into a sprint. The rain drenches them in seconds, thick droplets soaking into their upper bodies. When they reach the car Jisoo’s side unlocks without issue, but Soonyoung is left shaking his lock for an extra couple of seconds. 

When he finally gets inside, his hair is dripping down his neck, and he’s laughing. Jisoo laughs with him, the sound bell-like in its joy. There’s something freeing about being able to do things like this, as if the brief moment of exhilaration could wash away all of his worries. 

Sitting in the car, laughter bubbling up from within him, Soonyoung feels the most relaxed he’s been all day. The ghost inside his ribcage howls for blood and he turns to grin at Jisoo. “Ready to go home?”

Jisoo’s hair is stuck to his head, water dripping around his eyes. He looks like a drowned cat. Eyes sparkling, he says, “Of course. Let’s go home.”

~~~

They get to Soonyoung’s house without any further issue, rain driving other people off the streets and into their houses. Soonyoung takes Jisoo’s bags and gives him free reign in his living room while he drops them off upstairs.

Jisoo wanders around his house like he's exploring a foreign jungle. Soonyoung is strangely proud of that reaction. His house has a lot of things wrong with it, might be dangerous as all hell, but it’s never boring. 

There’re the windows that always smell like a sea breeze, the tiny violet that starts screaming when someone sings near it, and—

“Don’t touch those!” he says frantically, pulling Jisoo away from the pillars of salt in the living room. They stretch floor to ceiling, solid white crystalline structures thicker than his wrist. Set right next to the windows, they sparkle in the low light.

Jisoo, who had been in the middle of reaching out his hand, shakes loose from Soonyoung’s grip to look at him. “Why not?”

Soonyoung has a brief moment where he realizes how what he's about to say will sound, and presses forward anyways. “They’re like. Evil.”

“They’re what now?”

“Evil.” Soonyoung tilts his head. “It’s like… Have you ever gotten that paper that flies stick to? And then once they’re on it they can’t move, but you can’t exactly move the paper either because it’s a big salt pillar, so you’re stuck with a bunch of half alive flies in your living room forever? It’s kind of like that.”

There’s a moment of silence where Jisoo just looks at him. Then he looks at the pillars of salt. Then back at Soonyoung. “Are you telling me you have non-apotropaic snares just sitting around your house, unwarded?”

Soonyoung scratches the back of his head. “I guess? I didn’t know you needed wards for this sort of thing.”

“There’s certainly less of a chance of dying that way.” Jisoo says. “Why did you put them up?”

“Oh no, I didn’t put them up, they came with the house.” Soonyoung wanders over to the kitchen, and he pulls out a pitcher of tea from his fridge. “Drink?”

Jisoo steps forward. “Sure, thank you.” There’s a moment of silence while Soonyoung gets down glasses (he has a set with little tigers on the rims, _ absolutely adorable _) and pours tea for both of them. Another moment, and then, “You do know how dangerous that is, right?”

“The tea?”

“No, the” Jisoo waves a hand, “evil fly traps.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” Soonyoung puts the teapot away, sliding Jisoo’s cup over to him as if it was down the length of a bar instead of an old linoleum countertop. _ Nice. _ “I told you not to touch them, didn’t I?”

Jisoo picks up the tea, two-handed. He takes a sip. Considers. It looks like he's watching Soonyoung for something; it makes him shift, antsy. When Jisoo doesn’t say anything, Soonyoung turns and starts rummaging through the cabinets, just for something to do. He comes up with a package of pasta, which. Ok, thank you universe, he can take a hint.

There’s an old metal pot beneath his sink when he checks, and he starts filling it with water. He dumps in a palmful of salt before putting it on the stove in one motion. Then he reads the pasta box, because despite all memory of having made pasta before he can’t remember what times went with which steps. 

All the while, Jisoo watches him. When Soonyoung finally steps away from the pot, he sets down his tea with a tiny _ click, _and asks, “Why haven’t you gotten rid of them?”

Oh, so they were still on that. Soonyoung shrugs. “There are some things you need a lot of oomph to get rid of, hyung. The house has a couple of them.”

Jisoo tilts his head, strangely bird-like. “Such as…?”

“Hmmm” Soonyoung considers it. Honestly there were kind of a lot. “Well for one it’s been haunted basically forever now.”

Jisoo puts his head in his hands. “Nevermind, you can stop there.”

The distance between them isn’t so much that Soonyoung can’t walk over and pat him on the shoulder, still terribly awkward. He’s muffling laughter while he does so but he figures Jisoo should be able to handle it. He coordinated teenage witches for a living, Soonyoung himself should be a breeze.

On the stove the pasta water is boiling and Soonyoung walks over, dumping the whole box in at once. The motion sparks a memory, half shaded by his eyelids: Joshua’s brilliant smile when presented with a plate of Japchae made by the old woman across the hall. The apartment hadn’t seemed too small then, walls made friendly by the people living within them. Sunlit.

He shakes it off and sets a timer, settling in to wait. Memory couldn’t do anything but weigh him down. “Don’t worry too much, as long as you avoid touching them, it won’t be a problem!”

Jisoo lifts his head and looks at him, eyes bright as the light off a blade’s edge. “I hope so.”

~~~

Jisoo doesn’t stay awake much longer than that, devouring a plate of pasta and heading upstairs with a tired goodnight. Soonyoung walks him up and shows him where the bathroom and bedroom are, before patting his shoulder and telling him to sleep well. It’s early in the evening but still late enough that he had some chance of adapting to the right time zone. 

Soonyoung gives it a couple minutes before he heads back downstairs, picking up his bag of salt as he goes. He does the dishes as quickly as he can, hands shaking to the tempo of the rain outside. Outside, the world is nothing but a watercolor smear, rain fading the evening until it is barely visible through his windows.

He’s been forcing it down all evening, but the space where his lungs should be is being torn to shreds by a ghost hell bent on escape. It’s time to deal with that. 

Reason #2 that he needs weird as fuck salt pillars in his house: insurance. 

Three years ago, Soonyoung wouldn’t have known what to do with a ghost at all. Had been dealing with his first possession, in fact. It’s different now, but the reassurance of their presence is still distinctly felt.

With the quick hope that Jisoo was asleep by now, Soonyoung sets the dishes out to dry and walks into the living room, opening a window. Immediately, rain starts falling inside the house, splashing onto the carpet. He doesn’t try to stop the shivers that break out over his shoulders this time, dropping to his knees in front of the window. 

There’s something about a storm’s energy that makes the ghosts restless, makes it easier for them to possess people. Sometimes, standing beneath a good rainfront, Soonyoung feels untethered from his body. It’s as if he had been possessed enough times to dislodge his soul into the air, into freedom.

When he opens his mouth, the ghosts of ghosts are wrapped around his tongue. He tips his head back and lets the rain fall onto his face. The power of the storm hovers over his shoulders. Electric. 

There’s a very thin line between carrying a ghost with you and being possessed by it. In the three years that Soonyoung has been doing this he’s gotten very good at navigating that boundary. 

Even still, there’s only so long he can carry around the spirit of someone who does not want to be with him. The man with a void for face screams again, and Soonyoung taps a fist against his shoulder. 

“Don’t worry. You’ll be out of there soon.” He doesn’t say free. That’s not something he can promise. 

The rain continues to pour, and Soonyoung gather up rainwater in his palms, brings it to his lips. He doesn’t drink, just exhales. From between his lips pours smoke—white and thicker than fog. It seeps into the water, turning it milky then opaque before crystalizing, until all that Soonyoung is left holding is a pile of salt. A ghost made tangible.

He opens his hands and the salt has only started to fly away—sticking to the pillars in the living room—when he hears a quietly indrawn breath from the top of the stairs. Soonyoung’s concentration shatters and the rest of the salt drops to the floor. 

Standing at the top of the stairs, staring down at him, is Jisoo.

Soonyoung tries to look normal, and not like he was trapping a ghost inside his house forever so that it wouldn’t be able to haunt anyone anymore. He’s not sure how successful he is. 

Jisoo doesn't move at first, simply standing at the top of the stairs and looking down at him. There’s a series of microexpression fluttering across his face, the corner of his mouth, things that Soonyoung is both too far away and too unfamiliar with to decipher. It’s like looking at a stormfront from miles away. Incomprehensible potential. 

Soonyoung isn’t sure what he expects Jisoo to say, but it’s not, “Is this why you broke up with me?” His voice travels the spaces between them, leaves fingerprints on the drywall, streaks of emotion over Soonyoung’s bargain brand carpets. 

“What?” Joshua wouldn’t have confronted the issue so directly, but perhaps it's time for Soonyoung to stop comparing the Jisoo to the person he was three years ago.

Jisoo walks down the stairs, footsteps nearly lost under the sound of rainfall outside. “I kept wondering, you know. Why what I said was enough to make you kick me out.” He keeps walking. Getting closer. Soonyoung is silent, still kneeling on the floor, salt scattered around his knees. “I used to think it was just something about me, something you didn’t want to explain, but you were actually getting involved in…” He trails off. 

Soonyoung isn’t sure what he thinks. Black magic? The housing of ghosts for fun and profit (read: community safety)? The keeping of a house that is so haunted it might as well have ghosts coming out of its ears? None of the options are appealing. 

Jisoo stops just inches away from Soonyoung’s shoulder, drops to his knees as well. Salt crunches under his pants, and he looks him in the eyes. The corners of his eyes are tight, a peach-pit sort of rawness to his expression. This close, Soonyoung still can’t figure out what he’s thinking. He’s not sure if its because of those three years anymore, or simply the fact that he was never very good at reading Jisoo in the first place. 

“What do you think?”

Jisoo fixes him with a look. “What I think doesn’t matter very much, does it?”

“It’s _ always _mattered.” Soonyoung says, honesty punched out of him by the question. He’s been looking across the ocean all this time, and perhaps it isn’t something he’s said out loud but, “I still care about what you think. I wouldn’t lie to you about that.”

“No,” Jisoo says, “just about everything else. What are you doing here?”

“I live here.” Soonyoung breaks their stare and looks down, about to start sweeping up the salt. 

It’s gone. That’s probably a bad sign. 

Jisoo makes a noise of frustration. “I just want to know—”

Soonyoung interrupts him and stands up in one fluid motion. “If it's not something you can fix, why should it make a difference?”

“Why are you the one who gets to decide that?” Jisoo asks in return, not getting up from his place on the floor. It’s an uncomfortable position to be in, as if Soonyoung is trying to prove some sort of superiority over Jisoo by not sitting.

“Because you would have stayed.” he says. Emotion crawls through his hands, sets his fingers to tapping. Sincerity burns on his tongue. “And I couldn’t bear you getting hurt.”

Around them, the smell of salt water whirls into the air. Soonyoung tils his head, trying to figure out where it’s coming from, never taking his eyes off of Jisoo.

Jisoo stands as well, hands slowly closing themselves into fists. “I think that was my choice, not yours.” 

“You have a life, Jisoo.” Soonyoung says. He waves a hand upstairs, where his room is. “It’s been three years, what do you want me to say about it?”

“How about ‘I’m sorry?’” Here’s the anger Soonyoung had expected at the airport, bubbling to the surface now that they’re alone.

“I’m not, though.” Soonyoung says blankly. Jisoo has a life, can travel, isn’t haunted by every ghost in the greater Seoul region. How could he be sorry about that?

Jisoo flinches back, leans forward again. “Not even for breaking it off with someone you dated for two entire years out of nowhere?” Whatever regrets Soonyoung has about that are purely selfish ones, rooted in the desire to have Jisoo close, not safe. 

He can’t let himself be sorry. At this point, he’s been living without him longer than was was with him. Jisoo has changed. Soonyoung’s just glad he had the chance to.

“Go to bed, Jisoo.” Soonyoung says. He’s suddenly exhausted, the drain of dealing with both a ghost and Jisoo himself piling up on his shoulders. He shakes his head, trying to clear the fog settled over his temples. He’s going to have to look for the ghost, later. Without the helpful anchor of Han Dong’s presence, it’s going to be a lot harder than it was before. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

And, like he did so many years ago, Jisoo goes. Up the stairs and back to his place in Soonyoung’s house. This time though, there’s something different about it. A promise hanging unspoken in the air: this isn’t over. Soonyoung isn’t sure whether he likes it or not. 

~~~

Jisoo sleeps well into the afternoon, not having stirred at all by the time that Soonyoung has to leave to get to the dance studio. He leaves him a note in his messy handwriting with a tiny tiger drawing in the corner. Mostly to comfort himself, but also because he hopes Jisoo will think it's cool. He barrels straight through any tension last night had left, as if he could erase it all through sheer force of cheerfulness. Who knows, maybe he can.

_ Food is in the fridge, feel free to help yourself! Seungcheol told me that they’ve cancelled the first day of programming due to the weather, so don’t worry about being late. If you see a ghost, call me (XXX-XXX-XXXX). I’ll see you when I get back, fighting! _

_ -Soonyoung _

The storm is still raging outside. While the wind had calmed some overnight, it had given way to a mile wide rainfront. The weather hooks fingers into the horizon, drags it closer. Distance fogs into an afterthought, a camera angle narrowed to take in nearby and nothing else. 

The dance studio is no more than a twenty minute walk on most days, but today, with the rain drawn closer than a funeral shroud, it seems farther away. Soonyoung counts his steps as he goes, trying to find some way to make the distance interesting. 

He’s walked this way too many times to count, and it grates, seeing the same things every day, no break or rest between. His vacations are spent at his house. His work days are spent at his house. Any time elsewhere is spent returning to his house. The sky above his head is the only thing that changes. 

When he gets to the studio it’s to Chan’s wry face in the wall-length mirrors as he runs through warm ups alone. “You’re late, hyung.”

It’s going to be a great day, Soonyoung can tell.

~~~

Soonyoung steps out of the studio near sunset, back one solid ache. His muscles have liquified, untethering themselves from his bones to become some sort of agony soup. 

There’s no reason for him to be feeling like this as far as he can tell. Sure, he had run through the new piece he was choreographing a few more times than was perhaps wise, but nothing too bad. 

Maybe he was getting old. It would serve him right. 

Briefly, he thinks of calling his old mentor, the one who had taken him under his wing when he had first been possessed. Ask him: Was this what you thought I’d become? Is this where you thought I’d end up? Forever?

He doesn’t go through with it. For one, Taemin was probably busy, and for two, Soonyoung knows what he’d say already. It boiled down to one piece of advice—get over it.

The whole ghosts thing, the whole breakup thing, it was never meant to be permanent, really. Get rid of the ghosts, get back with his boyfriend. 

It’s like what he told Jisoo. He has a bunch of half-alive flies stuck in his living room, and he can’t move just in case they manage to break free. 

Who knew they would stick around this long? Who knew that Soonyoung would?

The road back to the house is long and paved with the memory of sunbeams. Soonyoung takes his time walking back.

~~~

He gets back to the house in a splash of rainwater. It hadn’t stopped raining once all day, and despite wearing a raincoat, Soonyoung had forgotten to put on rainboots. His shoes squish as he walks inside the door, personal puddle forming by his feet. 

“Welcome back.” Jisoo says. For a second, the familiarity of that phrase wraps its hands around Soonyoung’s shoulders, guides him right back into the past. He’s younger, walking into the apartment, hearing Jisoo say the exact same words. 

“I’m home.” Soonyoung says, and it feels sharp on his tongue. 

When he walks further inside, the lights are on in the kitchen, Jisoo standing over a pan of Japchae. The kitchen smells warm, like cooking oil and spices. Soonyoung walks closer, listening to the rain outside. 

He’s about to say something else, maybe ask about Jisoo’s day, when abruptly the house shakes. 

It goes like this: a flash of light, a clap of thunder, and then, with all the simplicity of flipping off a light switch, the power goes out. Soonyoung blinks in the sudden darkness, spots glittering behind his eyelids. A shudder makes its way down his spine.

It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust. Outside, the sun is past the horizon, and any moonlight that might have been out is hidden behind the clouds. The kitchen is suddenly small without illumination, the walls closing in like a set of jaws. The pan rattles, Jisoo presumably taking the Japchae off the stove. 

“Jisoo?” Soonyoung asks, waving an arm in the darkness, stepping forward slowly. 

“I’m here.” he says. Soonyoung heads in the direction of his voice, palms open to the darkness. “Hang on, I’ll—”

Just feet away from where Soonyoung was heading, light blooms in Jisoo’s palms. A ball of fire hovers there, red as the rising sun. The kitchen walls recede, gain bloody shadows. Jisoo’s face, lit from below, is unnerved. 

“Are you ok?” Soonyoung asks. 

“Yeah,” Jisoo says, “I’m good. You?”

Soonyoung takes a second, takes stock of his body. Two arms, two legs, head on his shoulders, all present and accounted for. “I’m good. I guess the storm is worse than I thought it was.”

Jisoo looks at him, really looks, and Soonyoung takes a breath against the weight of his gaze. “We’re probably stuck here until the power comes back on. Do you know if your kids will be ok?” The question is awkward on his tongue, a bit of concern he isn’t allowed anymore.

Jisoo snorts. ““My kids” are probably just fine. They’re all with host families now, and none of them have allergies worth mentioning.” He looks away. “It’s kind of you to ask.” Soonyoung isn’t sure it’s worth calling “kind”. If it mattered to Jisoo, of course he had to ask. 

Soonyoung doesn’t mention this, steps back instead, careful as a dance, counts the steps. _ One two three. _ Enough distance to escape Jisoo’s magnetic field. Farther away, he can see the details, the way Jisoo’s body bends towards him. “I can get out plates, no need for the hard work you put into dinner to go to waste.”

Jisoo sighs, and in the light from his palms, his face looks tired. Maybe he’s always looked tired. “Sure, that sounds nice. After this, we’re going to talk.”

Soonyoung nods back, and they get to it.

It’s a little awkward, trying to get the food on plates when Soonyoung is the only one who can use both of his hands, but they manage. Jisoo grabs his plate and Soonyoung gets everything else as they head into the living room. 

The table the sit at was only meant for one person, but they make it work. It puts them close, knees touching, hands bumping into each other every other minute. Soonyoung counts the breaths Jisoo takes between bites of Japchae, pinning into memory the way his shoulders move when he breathes. It would probably creepy if Jisoo wasn’t staring right back, one hand cupped around a sunburst, the other around a pair of chopsticks.

He’s going to say something, make conversation about the time Jisoo had spent in America maybe, when the house shakes again. 

It’s not thunder this time.

Soonyoung jumps to his feet, abandoning his food to dart his head around the room, searching for the source of the movement. Beneath his feet, the house shakes like an earthquake in miniature. He can’t find anything out of place and the most likely possibility was… 

“Is this the ghost?” Jisoo asks. 

“Uh,” Soonyoung pauses. The only vase he owns throws itself to the ground. “Probably, yeah.”

Beneath the quaking, comes a scream. Jisoo stands up as well, stepping away from the table. “Ok great, what do we do about it?”

A gust of wind hits the outside of the house and the ghost takes the opportunity to plunge the temperature. Their breath starts fogging over in the air. Soonyoung drags Jisoo close enough that their shoulders knock together. “Ok so quick ghosts 101.”

Jisoo laughs. It has more than a tinge of hysteria. “Is this really the time?”

“You wanted to know, didn’t you?” Soonyoung looks around for a second and throws a handful of salt onto the ground. “How much do you know about ghosts?”

“Basically nothing, Jisoo says. The fire spell in his palm flutters in an invisible breeze.

“That’s fine.” Soonyoung says. “Ok so–the basics. Ghost stick around because they have unfinished business, and then they get stuck. It’s like a record player on repeat, scratching the same song deeper and deeper on a disc–” The house shakes again. There’s a faint awful howl on the breeze demanding blood. 

Jisoo’s breath hisses out of him, carefully steady. “Get to the point, Soonyoung.”

Soonyoung is working off a year of Taemin’s absentminded tutelage and his own guesswork but he barrels onward. “The only way to get rid of a ghost forever is either purification or destruction. Purification takes like seven years and destruction would kill one of us, so we have to trap it back in the house again.” 

“And how are we supposed to do that?”

“Easy.” Soonyoung says, and pretends his voice doesn’t shake. “I let it possess me.”

“What??”

“It’s how I get the ghosts back to the house in the first place, right? So it’s simple. Let it possess me, trap it in the house, wait for the power to turn back on and eat more Japchae. Simple.”

“And what do I do in this plan of yours?”

Soonyoung considers it for as second, and scatters more salt on the floor. “You don’t die.”

Jisoo is about to say something, when the fire in his hands dies. He hisses out an expletive, and tries to relight it, but nothing happens. 

From the shadows beneath their feet, a ghost with a void for a face lunges. Soonyoung jumps away and throws more salt as it emerges, watching as the crystals catch fire, burning gold as they reach its outstretched hands. 

The time spent in the house hadn’t done the ghost any favors. Where it had been vaguely human shaped before, now it is just a silhouette of inky black, unravelling around the edges. The place where it’s head should be is just the suggestion of teeth and hunger, a pit of avarice asking to live again.

“Get back!” Soonyoung shouts it at the ghost and Jisoo both as he aims another handful of salt toward the blackness in front of him. The salt once again burns in the air, and beneath their feet, the salt that he had dropped earlier lights up into a field of stars. 

The ghost screams in pain and lunges toward Soonyoung. He opens his mouth. And then, the ghost goes past him. 

Towards Jisoo.

Soonyoung turns as quickly as he can, feet tangling over themselves. He’s in time to see Jisoo trip backwards, hands outstretched as if to ward the ghost off. 

The collision course frames itself in Soonyoung’s mind in an instant. The ghost, swooping towards Jisoo. Jisoo, expression of shock on his face as he falls backwards. It’s not thought that makes him move. It’s something more instinctual, something buried deeper than bone. 

(It’s something like this: at the heart of it all, despite the distance, there’s one ghost Soonyoung could never get rid of. Hard to exorcise a memory really. Hard to exorcise a feeling from his heart.)

Right before Jisoo gets consumed by the wave of malice, Soonyoung slaps a hand to one of the salt pillars near him, feels the bonds give way. A chemical reaction: NaCl, C9H13NO3, magic. The world lights up white and sends him to his knees. 

He screams. 

From behind his teeth, ghosts scream too. He sees light. Lightning. Something strikes into his body, electrifies all of his organs until he swears he can smell his own intestines burning. Every bone is agony.

It’s enough, though. In an instant the pillar that he had touched collapses in on itself, every ghost that had even been trapped in its crystalline structure shoving themselves into Soonyoung’s veins. His head is a million voices, each louder than the last, all crying out. 

The salt goes completely transparent, clear as a summer day. For a split second, nothing happens. Soonyoung—with what little clarity he can muster—curses. 

And then the pillar of salt starts to pull. It’s a reaction not unlike a rubber band snapping; released from the tension of holding so many ghosts within itself, it starts searching for any spirits in its reach. 

There are a thousand hands grasping Soonyoung’s spine, but none of them are outside of his body. There are no ghosts free in the room except for–

The ghost an inch away from Jisoo’s face shrieks as its dragged away, into the pillar of salt. The salt turns a milky shade of grey before fading back to solid white. Jisoo sits down heavily, one hand still stretched out. 

“Oh m– you did it, Soonyoung. I can’t believe it.”

He… did it. Jisoo is safe. The ghost is once again contained. Hearing this, Soonyoung finally allows himself to collapse to the side, everything keeping him upright giving way all at once. 

“I didn’t think– Soonyoung!” Jisoo breaks off his thoughts, scrambling to his feet and over to Soonyoung’s side in a heartbeat. “Are you ok?”

There are a thousand voices swimming in his head, all asking contradictory things. As if from a very great distance, Soonyoung can feel his fingers twitch, feel himself try to move. Jisoo rolls him on his back, and for a second, maybe longer, his head goes fuzzy. 

Things are just a little bit dark.

When he opens his eyes again, it’s to a familiar face merely inches away from his own and a cool towel on his forehead. The lights are back on. 

Soonyoung’s eyes flutter at the brightness. “Is that you, Joshua?”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! If you liked this, i’d love to hear your thoughts, comments are appreciated~~  
(finished in time for the 8th, and also while doing college work, and also unbeta'd, so i'll come back with another edit pass when i'm less dead <3)  
i'm on twitter/cc @lavenderim if you'd like to come talk <3


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